Members who wish to turn their art into a thriving business may want to register for The Clark Hulings Fund for Visual Artists at the Art-Business Summit March 23-24. This event is March 23-24 at Artists & Makers Studios, 11810 Parklawn Dr. in Rockville.

Among the topics to be covered:

How to maximize sales of your work

Critical marketing skills

How to find collectors

MAA members can receive a $50 discount by using the promo code ARTIST50 at registration. Register today, as space is limited. Details & Registration

We have hit our maximum capacity of 40 pieces of art for our first show at Art Enables in DC. Show registration is now closed. Thanks to all who have entered.

We look forward to seeing you at the show’s opening reception on Saturday, March 9 from 4-6 pm. The reception and show are in the Off-Rhode Gallery at 2204 Rhode Island Ave. NE, just south of DC’s Brookland neighborhood.

This column is designed to provide you with art news and information about interesting shows at local art galleries and museums. If you are aware of an event, news or an exhibit, large or small, that you think would be of interest, please email Judith Levine.

Museums

The Phillips Collection

1600 21st St. NW, Washington, DC

Zilla Sanchez: Soy Isla (I Am an Island)February 15-May 19

IntersectionsIntersections is back. This is a series of projects that explores links between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and the spaces within the museum and its display of new artistic interventions. The first show is in conjunction with the University of Maryland.

The National Gallery of Art

4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC

Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950 (West Wing)
Through February 18, 2019
The self-taught photographic genius that was Gordon Parks (1912-2006) is showcased in this exhibit. The sensitive, observant, highly intelligent way Parks made his pictures takes you fully into the people and world he captured. Close relationships with Roy Stryker, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, and his work at the Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information, and Standard Oil (now Exxon) also shaped the way he saw his world.

Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project (West Wing)
Through March 17, 2019.
I admit I did a double take, but the child in the diptych is not Michelle Obama. The woman and child are Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, and Bey took these photos in 2012.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Independence Avenue and Seventh Street SW, Washington, DC.

Pulse: Rafael Lozano-HemmerThrough April 28, 2019
This is a genuine participant-activated event. Touch a button and your finger prints are scanned and heartbeat recorded. The bulbs that comprise the installation piece pulse in time to yours and those of other visitors. Interaction with art at its most basic.

What Absence Is Made OfThrough Summer 2019
“What does absence look like? How can loss—of objects, of memory, of yourself—become a tool for artistic expression? In the face of today’s increasingly noisy consumer culture, What Absence Is Made Of answers these questions and more as it mines the Hirshhorn’s extensive collection in search of the mind-bending ways that artists surmount the limits of the material world.” (Hirshorn catalog)

The Sackler & Freer Galleries

1050 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC

The Peacock Room Revealed (Freer)
Through April

Japan Modern: Prints in the Age of Photography (Sackler)Empresses of China’s Forbidden City, 1644–1912 (Sackler)
Through June 23, 2019

A Glimpse of Ancient Yemen (Sackler)
Through August 18, 2019

National Museum of the American Indian

Fourth Street & Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC

AmericansThrough January 2022
Native American symbols and pictures have been used to represent a wide variety of products in the past. In some cases, such as the Indian Motorcycle, they were considered the epitome of the field. Others were demeaning, picturing Native Americans as picturesque savages. The visitor to this exhibit will experience the range and leave understanding how the people felt about these objects.

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World
Through September 2020

National Museum of African Art

950 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC

World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian OceanOngoing“Swahili” comes from the Arabic word meaning “edge” or “coast”. This area of the coast of eastern Africa has been a crossroads for Asian, European, and African travelers for over a thousand years. This show showcases both individual cultures and the mixing that occurred during this time.

Renwick Gallery

1661 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC

Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018Through May 5, 2019

Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Syjuco are the four artists selected for this year’s Invitational. Aguiñiga is a Mexican artist whose work reflects her heritage even as it lives in the twenty-first century. Bey uses ceramics to make objects that are both sumptuous and usable. Dustin Farnsworth pieces are often large and move from “what in the world?’ to “Ahhhh.” Stephanie Syjuco, a Philippine-born American, makes installations using “collected cultural objects, cumulative archives, and temporary vending installations, often with an active public component that invites viewers to directly participate as producers or distributors” (Artist Statement, Stephanie Syjuco website). The Renwick Invitational is always an exciting introduction to crafters you may not know when you go but won’t forget by the time you leave.

Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
Ongoing

National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum

8th and F streets NW, Washington, DC

Orchids: Amazing Adaptations (SAAM)
February 2-April 28

This annual joint venture with National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Gardens, and the U.S. Botanic Garden is a feast for the eyes, nose, and soul.

Mother III by Yun Suknam

Yun Suknam: Portraits of the World: Korea (NPG)
Through November 17, 2019

Feminist artist Yun Suknam explores the position and view of women artist in past and present in both Korea and the world.

Recent Acquisitions (NPG)
Through November 3, 2019

Eye to I: Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today (NPG)
Through August 18, 2019

Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor (SAAM)
Through March 17, 2019
Outsider art is a category of work made by artists who are self-taught. Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) was born a slave and didn’t begin to paint until he was in his 80s in Montgomery, Alabama. He is considered the preeminent outsider painter in the US.

One Year: 1968, An American Odyssey (NPG)
Through May 19, 2019

Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now (NPG)
Through March 10, 2019
The silhouette is seeing a resurgence. This art form was highly popular during the 18th and 19th centuries. One moving moment: a life-size silhouette of a nineteen-year-old enslaved girl which includes her bill of sale from 1796. The contemporary silhouettes contrast in both subject and materials.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

1250 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC

New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Betsabeé Romero
Through September 20, 2020

Members of one of the DC region’s largest art associations are exhibiting paintings, drawings, mixed piece pieces and more at the Oasis Gallery inside the Macy’s Home Store at Westfield Montgomery Mall through April 26.

The opening reception will be held this Saturday, January 26 from 2-3:30 pm and is open to the public. During the event, several artists will be awarded Viewers Choice awards. Light refreshments will be served.

If you can’t make it to the opening reception, please stop by to see the show over the next few months. It runs through April 26.

About the Gallery

The Oasis Gallery is one of MAA’s newest collaborative venues. Oasis is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting healthy aging through lifetime learning, active lifestyles and volunteer engagement. Its gallery and classrooms are inside the Macy’s Home Store. MAA would like to thank the staff at Oasis for allowing us this wonderful opportunity again this year.

Additional Activities

Two MAA-member led classes are scheduled during the show run at Oasis. Kathleen Hopkins will lead the hands-on class “Create Beautiful Cherry Blossom Art with Water Colors” on February 5, and Terry Pellmar will lecture on “Painting With Pixels” February 25. More info

Directions

The Oasis Art Gallery is inside the Macy’s Home Store at Westfield Montgomery Mall, which is at 7101 Democracy Blvd., in Bethesda.

From Garage A on Westlake Drive: Follow the aisle to the end and turn left. Drive two aisles to your left to park near Macy’s Home Store entrance. Pass through elevator lobby and see entrance on left.

From inside the mall: Enter Macy’s Home Store. Turn left toward the Linen Department. Go through Linens and follow signs for the Exit/Parking Garage. At the inner lobby, enter OASIS straight ahead.

Glen Kessler teaches students about the color wheel at his classroom studio in Rockville.

Paint the Town Labor Day Show demo artist and invitational winner Glen Kessler is offering a bonus for MAA members who sign up for his 1.5-hour Color Wheel Tutorial workshop on February 6.

All current MAA members will receive a free Painters Compass Color Wheel (a $7 value). The lecture and demo will provide insight into mixing and mastering color. A glass of wine and light snacks are included, too.

The workshop will be held at The Compass Atelier in the Artists & Makers building at 11810 Parklawn Dr. in Rockville. $30 per person.

Winning the Bertha Klum Award was definitely a dream of mine – one that I hadn’t consciously identified until very recently. As 2019 begins, I can reflect on the last 12 months as a year of transformation for me as a new artist.

Renewing My Love for Creating Art

With the balancing act of tending to family and career, my artistic interests were dormant for a long time. In January of 2018, I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in ages, upon signing up for Glen Kessler’s phenomenal Painting Through the Lens Class at The Compass Atelier. It’s been a tremendous personal journey for me to immerse myself in a new painting ritual and finally embrace my creative and artistic side.

When I started contemplating entering the 2018 Kensington Labor Day show – an event I had admired for years as an art lover and collector – I never imagined winning two first-place awards as an artist myself. But the dreams kept happening, and the learning, confidence, course adjustments, and preparation occurred a little bit each day. The Bertha Klum award at the Kensington Labor Day show was a critical milestone for what is becoming an artistic career.

Jennifer at the 2018 Paint the Town Labor Day show, next to her award-winning piece.

Surrounding Myself with Support

My family has adapted to a slightly obsessed new oil painter in their midst. While they are not always pleased when my time is divided, they give me the space I need and they beam with pride when I paint something I’m excited about.

Surrounded by a community of artists at Compass Atelier, Artists and Makers Studios, MAA, and other local artist groups, I am inspired and energized daily by those of you who are passionate about creating beautiful art and helping others do the same. I am enjoying the surprising new relationships developing and hope that I can give back a little joy along the way.

Growing and Staying Open to Opportunities

Since participating in the MAA and winning the Bertha Klum Award, I have sold a number of works, taken on several commissions, and started to develop a portfolio. Most recently, I was invited to join the Gaithersburg Artists Collective and showing my work at the beautiful Artists on Market pop up galley in the Kentlands.

I also displayed a piece at the 24th Annual Yellow Barn Member Show just last month. I look forward to more painting in my studio, gathering with new friends, and participating in some exciting exhibit opportunities in 2019.

This column is designed to provide you with art news and information about interesting shows at local art galleries and museums. If you are aware of an event, news or an exhibit, large or small, that you think would be of interest, please email Judith Levine.

Museums

The Phillips Collection

1600 21st St. NW, Washington, DC

Nordic ImpressionsThrough January 13, 2019

IntersectionsIntersections is back. This is a series of projects that explores links between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and the spaces within the museum and its display of new artistic interventions. The first show is in conjunction with the University of Maryland.

Richard Tuttle: It Seems Like It’s Going To BeThrough December 30, 2018

The National Gallery of Art

4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC

Rachel Whiteread’s Ghost (East Wing)
Through January 13, 2019

The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy (West Wing)
Through January 20, 2019

Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950 (West Wing)
Through February 18, 2019
The self-taught photographic genius that was Gordon Parks (1912-2006) is showcased in this exhibit. The sensitive, observant, highly intelligent way Parks made his pictures takes you fully into the people and world he captured. Close relationships with Roy Stryker, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, and his work at the Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information, and Standard Oil (now Exxon) also shaped the way he saw his world.

Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project (West Wing)
Through March 17, 2019.
I admit I did a double take, but the child in the diptych is not Michelle Obama. The woman and child are Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, and Bey took these photos in 2012.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Independence Avenue and Seventh Street SW, Washington, DC.

Pulse: Rafael Lozano-HemmerThrough April 28, 2019
This is a genuine participant-activated event. Touch a button and your finger prints are scanned and heartbeat recorded. The bulbs that comprise the installation piece pulse in time to yours and those of other visitors. Interaction with art at its most basic.

Sean Scully: Landline Series
Through February 3, 2019

What Absence Is Made OfThrough Summer 2019
“What does absence look like? How can loss—of objects, of memory, of yourself—become a tool for artistic expression? In the face of today’s increasingly noisy consumer culture, What Absence Is Made Of answers these questions and more as it mines the Hirshhorn’s extensive collection in search of the mind-bending ways that artists surmount the limits of the material world.” (Hirshorn catalog)

Charline Von Heyl: Snake Eyes
Through January 27, 2019

The Sackler & Freer Galleries

1050 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC

For Love of Place: Japanese Screens (Freer)Japan Modern: Prints in the Age of Photography (Sackler)Empresses of China’s Forbidden City, 1644–1912 (Sackler)
Through June 23, 2019

Subodh Gupta: Terminal (Sackler)
Through February 3, 2019

A Glimpse of Ancient Yemen (Sackler)
Through August 18, 2019

National Museum of the American Indian

Fourth Street & Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC

AmericansThrough January 2022
Native American symbols and pictures have been used to represent a wide variety of products in the past. In some cases, such as the Indian Motorcycle, they were considered the epitome of the field. Others were demeaning, picturing Native Americans as picturesque savages. The visitor to this exhibit will experience the range and leave understanding how the people felt about these objects.

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World
Through September 2020

National Museum of African Art

950 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC

World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian OceanOngoing“Swahili” comes from the Arabic word meaning “edge” or “coast”. This area of the coast of eastern Africa has been a crossroads for Asian, European, and African travelers for over a thousand years. This show showcases both individual cultures and the mixing that occurred during this time.

Renwick Gallery

1661 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man
Through January 21, 2019

The art of Burning Man has never before been seen outside of its Black Rock Desert home. It is some of the most innovative work many visitors have ever seen. And you get a chance to experience virtual reality as a part of it.

Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018Through May 5, 2019

Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Syjuco are the four artists selected for this year’s Invitational. Aguiñiga is a Mexican artist whose work reflects her heritage even as it lives in the twenty-first century. Bey uses ceramics to make objects that are both sumptuous and usable. Dustin Farnsworth pieces are often large and move from “what in the world?’ to “Ahhhh.” Stephanie Syjuco, a Philippine-born American, makes installations using “collected cultural objects, cumulative archives, and temporary vending installations, often with an active public component that invites viewers to directly participate as producers or distributors” (Artist Statement, Stephanie Syjuco website). The Renwick Invitational is always an exciting introduction to crafters you may not know when you go but won’t forget by the time you leave.

Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
Ongoing

National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum

8th and F streets NW, Washington, DC

Mother III by Yun Suknam

Yun Suknam: Portraits of the World: Korea (NPG)
November 17, 2019

Feminist artist Yun Suknam explores the position and view of women artist in past and present in both Korea and the world.

Recent Acquisitions (NPG)
Through November 3, 2019

Eye to I: Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today (NPG)
Through August 18, 2019

Outsider art is a category of work made by artists who are self-taught. Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) was born a slave and didn’t begin to paint until he was in his 80s in Montgomery, Alabama. He is considered the preeminent outsider painter in the US.

One Year: 1968, An American Odyssey (NPG)
Through May 19, 2019

Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now (NPG)
Through March 10, 2019
The silhouette is seeing a resurgence. This art form was highly popular during the 18th and 19th centuries. One moving moment: a life-size silhouette of a nineteen-year-old enslaved girl which includes her bill of sale from 1796. The contemporary silhouettes contrast in both subject and materials.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

1250 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC

New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Betsabeé Romero
Through September 20, 2020

Rodarte
Through February 10, 2019

OTHER SHOWS and GALLERIES

Walters Art Museum

600 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD; Wednesday–Sunday, 10 am-5 pm

Transformation: Art of the AmericasArts of Asia
Through October 1, 2020

VisArts at Rockville

These 12 artists have cast new eyes on the still life genre. No quiet bowls of fruit, no arrangements of flowers, no groups of glassware or foods for this group. They choose to make work that doesn’t sit quietly on the wall and show off the furniture.

Life gets busy when you’re an artist, especially when you begin producing and showing more and more work. Given his roles as a Yellow Barn art instructor, an active member of a local art gallery and a successful artist participating in many shows throughout the area, James Vissari has decided to vacate the MAA presidency in order to focus on his art career.

In a recent survey about our Paint the Town Labor Day Show, our members noted that finding camaraderie with other artists was the best part of the show. James has been the key reason that happens. He was always the friendliest face at our shows, welcoming all members, familiar or not, with an exuberant warmth and huge smile. He made MAA feel like an intimate club of artist friends.

James exuded that same sincerity in networking in the community, building relationships that have helped MAA grow. We have nearly 200 members, we’ve added more shows, and we now participate in more community events.

James has also been committed to seeing new artists gain knowledge of the business of art through the mentorship of more established artists and through educational opportunities that MAA provides. It was through MAA, after all, that he won some of his first awards for his art. James’ commitment to learning from others is now the foundation of MAA’s vision.

We wish to thank James for all he put into being president and for caring so deeply about this organization. Certainly it’s not goodbye, as James will remain an MAA member and, we hope, still bring his huge, warm smile to our meetings and shows.

Here’s a collection of some of James’ drawings, paintings and sculptures:

I went to see the One House Project at BlackRock Center for the Arts last month. All the panels were the same size. Everybody’s story was as important every other one. Each participant artist was free to tell his or her story in anyway, using whatever materials the wished. The overriding idea was to teach visitors to the huge spread of reasons and ways people became immigrants to the United States.

The concept of the show was to explore the fact that, aside from Native Americans, we are all immigrants or descendants if immigrants. Some of the participants ancestors actually came on the Mayflower, some are descendants of Spanish people who had originally settled in Mexico, some are refugees escaping Europe before and after the Holocaust, pogroms and exclusion laws, some are refugees from wars and violence in Africa and South America, some are escaping war and crushing poverty in Asia. And some came involuntarily as slaves, convicts and indentured servants. Each panel told an individual story, as unique as the creators.

As I walked through I felt in some way intrusive in personal memories even as I was grateful for the sharing of them. I listened as they spoke about their panels. The descendant of a slave has been unable to trace her story further than that ancestor, she has had a huge part of her story stolen and that is very painful.

The curator, Jackie Hoysted, spoke of her own story as she is an immigrant. Prior to going into the show, some of us had been invited to create a panel to tell our own story. I chose my immigrant mother; I later took the panel to show my family who were very moved by all I’d included.

Art Watch is a DC, Maryland and Virginia based collective that seeks to join people together using visual art and communication. The group looks to use projects such as Our House to show how telling our stories can help overcome the fear of those who are not ‘like us’, whose skin, religion, culture, and customs can make us stronger if they are included in the larger story.

They open up the subject of inclusion and how discrimination-both legal and illegal- creates needless pain and loss. As someone who has experienced how devastating that can be, this exhibition hit home very powerfully.

I learned the stories of two of our own members, Jamie Downs and Jeanne Sullivan. Art Watch hopes that this project will be repeated. I personally plan to contact them about being involved and hope many of my fellow MAA members will do the same. Sound exciting?